


What's the Point?

by upquarkAO3



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 05:55:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/upquarkAO3/pseuds/upquarkAO3
Summary: A much-needed portion of conversation between our two darlings. Just a quick, unreviewed blurt because I am struggling a bit with the concept of Limbo/Purgatory myself as we all await the verdict of denouement for this lovely lil' show.





	What's the Point?

**Author's Note:**

> Set just a few moments after The Reveal in the S3 finale. Because obvie Lucifer (and the rest of his funky fam) can *poof* spatially.

 

[ - ]

“I still don’t understand.”

“Well darling, I’m afraid we’ve covered rather a lot of ground in a short span of time. You’ll need to be more specific.”

“Really. REALLY? Brat.”

He tilted away at the small swat upon his shoulder, but smiled as he did. In joy, that this terribly odd conversation was occurring at all. In awe, that this human could (apparently?) recover enough to have it. In gratitude: to her, to his father, to her family – to whatever had forged her mettle well enough to see him and not dissociate.

Really see him. HIM. In a manner he’d never intended – not like this, any road.

But, most of all, in relief.

This was his Chloe.

And she was strong.

Annoying as well? “OW!”

“Well, don’t drift off in the middle of my meltdown then, Lucifer. Pay attention. You owe me that, at least.”

“Yes, _sir_ ,” he snarked, rubbing the elbow she’d pinched. It shouldn’t have hurt him, not really, not after ALL he recently been through, but still. It was her. He was ever-sensitive to anything from **her**.

She responded to his quip about the same as Daniel had way back when (did all law enforcement officers have this as their Achilles’ heel? Because Amenadiel had that crusty look down pat, too), but the roll of her beautiful eyes was far more engaging than either his brother’s or her ex-husband’s.

No, Lucifer mused. Not just his interest’s ex. Dan had, despite himself and **him** self become a friend. Of sorts.

The kind he’d miss. If this…whatever this was going to be…was unsuccessful in working out. Somehow.

Lucifer gave himself a brief shake and deep breath (before he was pinched again, blast it!) and tried to focus on the task at hand.

“Ask again if you would,” he said softly. “I don’t know if I can answer in a way you’ll understand, but I’ll try. For you of course – **obviously** \- _certainly_ , I’ll always - ”

He swallowed quickly over the sudden lump in his flawed human throat but as always when he stumbled, Chloe caught him.

“No, it’s okay. This has to be a lot for you, too. I just- .” She halted herself, lush lip bitten hard enough to draw precious blood.

And here **he** caught  her.

The Devil clasped his long fingers around the slightly chilly hand of this human he cared for so deeply. The gentle press of molecules ancient and miraculous was soothing for them both. For a just a moment, an errant sparkling grain of sand in the desert of Loss: barely a microcosm in the vast span of Time Itself they chose silence together. Lucifer breathed everything in, not knowing (as he hadn’t in eons) what was to come next and wanting to savor the little respite he had found here.

In case it was taken. Spirited away. Lost to him as so many other things had been, and oh – how he had railed and raged against those circumstances. Fire and fury. Blame and blasphemy. He’d experienced it all. Provoked a lot of it, if he was being honest.

He ducked his head slightly. Honesty. Yes. He’d been a paragon of a flavor of it. But his own truth was something that had only been slowly revealed to himself **by** himself. Thank you Linda, for honing that useful skill of self-awareness.

But this?

This soft little eddy the linear river of existence had marooned them within?

_This_ he would take and accept with all his capable grace despite the discomfort.

Not knowing….not knowing **enough** had always been his bane. He chanced a sideways glance to Chloe. She was (still) holding his hand tightly, content enough to be with him on a rooftop not far removed in time and space from the shredding of her reality. They sat on a stone bench under large potted trees in someone’s false Babylon.

In the past, he’d laughed at the farce of Paradise these humans had tried to re-create from the primordial soup of their instinctual genesis. How dare they? How **dare** they ape artificial grace from Heaven’s wonder?

But despite his interference, overt or otherwise through the ages, they’d doggedly kept on. Messily, painfully, beautifully strong and strange in their will…humanity kept on.

As he had.

As she did now.

And he was grateful for it, more than he’d ever been in ways he was barely beginning to understand.

‘So Limbo, Lucifer – can you explain it to me?”

He took a deep, cooling breath into these fevered human lungs he carried as talismans of this mortal coil. Transient or otherwise, they were his choice – just as this was. **She** was. And she – them together – deserved the best he could offer.

Hands still clasped, he turned to face her more fully. Lucifer let his eyes - his real ones of liquid crimson and fluid char - gaze into the soothing blue aquifers of the woman he loved.

“I will try.”

To her credit (and his pride) he saw she didn’t flinch. Not a bit. If anything, she held on tighter and gave him the solace of her quiet smile as well.

And it was imperfectly perfect as he’d never been even when he was.

“Dear one, it’s difficult. Not just for mortals to comprehend, either. I mean,” he blew out the stagnant air of his discomfiture noisily and was gratified to feel the grip of her hand strengthen.

With that he could began again.

“I mean for all of us. Perfection: that was the lens we were taught through. And then error: even if we could not initially comprehend, still. ‘Opposite” is not a hard lesson to learn. Especially if not empirically. At least not at first.” He sighed. ‘Opposite’ had indeed been a very hard taskmaster – particularly for him.

Lucifer gave himself a small shake and noticed Chloe’s little grin at his awkwardness. He smiled to himself at the subtle melt. It was no matter. She’d certainly seen him worse.

But she was ever worth trying for and so he did.

“Yes, darling – one or the other; well, all right. Understandable enough – at least in principle. But middle ground is difficult at best to fathom. The crux of the Mobius strip is murky, dirty and dank…and that’s what Limbo or Purgatory are. Not worth the balm of Heaven nor deserving of the purge of Hell. Not enough of either to warrant the satisfaction of a job well done nor punishment deserved.”

“So what’s the point?”

Good question. It was so he repeated it aloud.

“That’s not actually an answer, Lucifer.”

“I know, darling. If you want all the answers unmuddled I’m afraid you’re speaking to the wrong generation. I only know what I’ve been allowed.”

She poked him in the side. “Ass.”

He chuckled. “Indeed. Am and have. Actually going a mite pins-and-needles perched on this faux-stone monstrosity, mind you.”

Her eyes rolled again. He loved it. Loved her.

He was fairly certain she knew that. But just in case…he curled their hands to his mouth slowly, gently as he’d ever been when it really mattered. The soft kiss he pressed to her bruised knuckles was carried on the same breath as these words:

“I don’t know why we must tangle in the winds of change darling – I really don’t. But if it’s a choice between that and never having been shown this light….well. Rather than dare the others, I’ll gladly bask in uncertainty for as long as you’ll have me do so.”

“Lucifer. That’s not what I – oh.”

Chloe took in the intent, otherworldly gaze she’d never expected. Never believed in. Not really. Until it showed up on her proverbial doorstep in all its messy splendor.

So she was careful. With herself. With him. Most especially, with **_them_** : Whatever that would turn out to mean. To be.

Her smile was as soft as the hand rising to clasp his cheek, and it didn’t matter, not really, that the visage underneath her trembling fingertips flickered between soft, pale flesh and hard, garnet furrows. She carefully traced the golden light that frisson’s dance claimed in his face and decided that she loved him anyway.

Any. Way.

And when she told him this, he knelt at her feet as he’d never done anywhere for anyone else, head in her lap like the most willing of unicorns in thrall of their chosen maiden and he knew.

Knew within every fiber of his being that his own long stint in Purgatory was over at last.


End file.
